R.J. JONES¹, M.A. STOLTZ², J.H.F. MEYER² and F.M. BECHAZ²

¹CSIRO Tropical Agriculture, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
²ARC-RFI, Lynn East, Republic of South Africa

Abstract

Rumen fluid collected for in vitro digestion studies from wild herbivores cannot always be used immediately and must be stored. This experiment examined the effect of storage time on the digestive ability of sheep rumen fluid using five feeds of differing digestibility (three browse species, a temperate grass and a tropical grass).
Rumen fluid was collected, chilled to 18°C and stored under CO₂ for 24 h and 48 h before being used at the same time as fresh rumen fluid. A 72 h rumen fluid/buffer digestion and a 24 h acid pepsin digestion was used, to determine in vitro digestibility. Three separate runs were made, with triplicate samples of each feed in each run.
Overall there was a slight decline in digestibility: 50.9, 50.2 and 49.0% with storage times of 0 h, 24 h and 48 h, but differences were not significant (P > 0.05). There was no feed × storage time interaction (P > 0.05). It is proposed that storage for up to 48 h at 18°C would be acceptable for examining digestive capacity of rumen fluid collected from wild animals in remote locations.